Broken gears
by Linkinshire
Summary: '... the woman looks up and straight into her eyes and her immediate response is to lift her hand and give Bianca the finger. That nasty bi-' Some things just don't miraculously change and Zoe and Bianca still really don't like each other. [Post- St Trinians 2] [Eventual Zoe/Bianca] [Rated T for language] [Genre suggestions are welcome]
1. Chapter 1

_A/N: Set in a post- St Trinians 2 world. Zoe/Bianca because I love crazy dynamics in relationships and these are a lot of fun to write, even if it's just them bickering... which this sort of is I suppose... at least for now but I digress. Enjoy!_

* * *

_**Broken gears**_

She sees her and for a moment she's so stunned at the sight of her that she stands there and just stares for way longer than is probably appropriate. Then she remembers she's got a girlfriend or that, more relevantly, said girlfriend is pulling her towards some shop that she has no desire to step into whatsoever. She keeps looking though and just as she's about to vanish into another half an hours worth of torment, the woman looks up and straight into her eyes and her immediate response is to lift her hand and give Bianca the finger. That nasty_ bitch_. Bianca scowls then she's pulled through the door…

* * *

She goes back later… alone. Her girlfriend was great but only in small doses, very small doses around the size of a thimble full. So she goes back, stalks over and drops down into the seat opposite the woman who for a long while doesn't even spare her a glance.

"Your chav-ness is infecting my work. You risk sending me into unemployment," She drones, her tone sharp and she glares flatly over at Bianca, eyeing her as if she were a stain on a pristine white shirt except Zoe doesn't wear white shirts.

"I'm a _Rude Girl,_" Bianca corrects firmly, just like she has done too many times before and just like every other time, she knows she'll be ignored. "What you doing 'ere?"

"The same thing I was doing an hour ago."

Zoe is smirking again, that patronising smirk that she knows pushes Bianca's buttons because Bianca hates being talked to like she's stupid and Zoe's _always_ been good at doing that. She hasn't changed much really looking at her. She looks a bit older and maybe a bit tired, like a weight has settled on her shoulders; a weight that won't shift. She's ditched the skirt in favour of black denim jeans. Bianca's nose wrinkles then she huffs.

"I'm tryin' be friendly," She says, her irritation hardening her tone and Zoe glances away, clearly contemplating something bitchy before she looks down at the papers in front of herself and she twirls her pencil.

"I'm looking for inspiration…" She explains, choosing to be civil for two seconds like fuck, did Hell just freeze over? Bianca peers down at the sheets of paper. It's drawings, people, animals, buildings, anything really… They're not bad either. She's call them great if they were anyone else's.

"For what?" She asks and Zoe huffs a breath.

"I'm doing a mural for a Primary school…" She returns flatly. Bianca blinks at her, unable to disguise her disbelief and Zoe scowls at her warningly. "I need money. Bills don't pay themselves nor do I photosynthesise like a fucking plant. I need food, don't I? Therefore I am doing a stupid mural for stupid, bratty kids," She growls.

"Alright… Chill…" Bianca protests. She looks down at the drawings. "They ain't bad."

"_Thanks…_"

"I'm bein' serious," Bianca huffs indignantly. "Can't say nowt right with you."

"Why are you bothering me?" Zoe demands and Bianca decides she's had enough of this shit already and would actually prefer listening to her girlfriend complaining about their clashing dress senses.

"Well… fucking _fine_," She says simply and she stands with an angry huff and walks off past the Emo with the intent of going to buy herself something alcoholic just to forget the whole irritating day.

"... Hey! Wait!"

Bianca stops walking and pauses for a moment. She isn't obligated to pay any attention to Zoe. They only seem to be able to communicate through arguments and fist fights and that was fine at school but out in the real world there's no Matron to clean the blood off your face.

She sighs heavily, questioning her sanity, before she turns to find Zoe leaning over the back of her chair and staring across the road before her gaze falls onto Bianca.

"I need ideas…" She says and it's as much of a request as Bianca will ever get and so she heads back, drops into the chair again and she looks down at the piles of sketches and flips through them them all curiously before sliding them out the way and resting her hands down, her fingers drumming against the wood.

"You need something… fun," She states.

Zoe stares at her with a flat look and Bianca sniffs.

"You do know what fun is, don't you?" She asks, not entirely sure if Zoe really does or not. The Emo flashes a cruel smile.

"Indeed I do… but I don't think Primary school children would get the same joy I do out of tormenting the elderly couple that live next door to me…" She returns with a disturbing level of delight and Bianca grimaces. She supposes that she probably ought to have seen that coming.

"Nah… Probably not," She agrees and so they sit there for the next hour and she's giving ideas involving ice cream vans, the park, fair grounds and the seaside. Most of which Zoe brushes aside, occasionally smacking Bianca in the face with a pen or a pencil or anything really for what she deems as a particularly stupid idea. They part with the familiar goodbyes.

"I hate you, go shag your trackies."

"I hate you more, Bride of Chucky. Go shag a corpse."

It's as polite as it can get and Bianca has no fucking idea why she's just wasted her time on Zoe of all people...

* * *

She hears a knock on her front door and is instantly suspicious. She stares at it with narrowed eyes before making a cautious approach. People only knock on a St Trinians girl's door for one of three reasons. If they're drunk and need a place to crash, if someone is dead or they _think _someone is dead (terrible misunderstanding that one) and lastly, if it's the police and they're feeling courteous enough not to bash your door down without making an attempt to get your attention by other means. None of those reasons are particularly good, especialy not the last one because fucking Hell, doors aren't cheap, and so Bianca approaches with careful steps over her wooden floor, avoiding the creaking boards. She puts her ear to beside the worn paint for a moment, spending a brief moment to feel marginally pissed that somebody would paint solid oak because seriously, why the fuck would you do that?

Her contemplation is ruined by a fist smacking into it and she yelps, recoiling into a cabinet and she fumbles to catch the empty fruit-bowl sliding off it before it can hit the floor. She scowls over at the door accusingly as she places the bowl back down with more force than strictly necessary, which is to say, a lot.

"Open up, idiot!"

"Fucking Hell…" Bianca growls, recognising the voice and she takes a breath to steady her jumpy nerves then wrenches the door open and instantly glowers across at Zoe who clearly does not give a shit about how irritated Bianca is. She never did give a shit so why should she now? She's lounging against the wall opposite with her arms folded casually and she is looking at Bianca in that way that makes her feel stupid (again) and pisses her off to no end (as per usual). "What are you doin' here? How do you know where I live?!" She demands.

"Taylor told Andrea. Andrea told me," Zoe shrugs casually.

"... What do you want then?" Bianca mutters and Zoe glares at her icily.

"Stop being such a prat and I'll tell you," She snaps and Bianca's hand clenches into a fist around the door-frame, fighting the urge to send it into Zoe's face, and she forces herself to wait. "I heard your girlfriend moved out."

"… Yeah?" Bianca deadpans. It kind of crashed and burned that one did. She isn't very broken up about it though. The girl was too demanding, too much a perfectionist... too much full stop really.

"Well, I also heard you were having trouble with the bills," Zoe continues smoothly.

"Who tells you all this shit?!"

"Taylor tells Andrea and-" Zoe starts.

"Andrea tells you. Yeah. Got it. Lesson learned. Don't tell Taylor anything," Bianca interrupts irritably, rolling her eyes. "That don't explain why you're 'ere."

"I was wondering if you wanted move in with me."

Bianca blinks. Zoe says it like it's nothing but of course it is because they were hated rivals at St T's… Well, maybe hate is a tiny bit strong but it was a powerful sense of loathing all the same and that kind of animosity doesn't really just vanish.

"… Why?" Bianca questions suspiciously and Zoe huffs at the tone.

"I could do with a hand myself. I'm always a bit short and I need a room mate… You seemed logical."

"Me? Logical? After all the shit at St Ts?" Bianca says with a pointed look.

"… Well, who the fuck else am I going to ask?" Zoe returns with a shrug and Bianca could probably give her that except for one glaring point.

"Literally, _anybody else on the planet._ There is not a single hope in this world of me not throttlin' in ya' in your sleep if I were to live with ya'..." She says quite seriously and Zoe thinks for a moment, appearing to chew this over before she smirks.

"You could certainly try to," She returns with a challenging edge in her tone and Bianca grits her teeth.

"I'm already strugglin' not kill ya' now. Zoe, if I lived with you, there is at least... a one hundred per cent chance of you ending up dead," She replies.

"You can't get any percentage higher than one hundred, chav."

"I could get two hundred if I decided revive ya' jus' to throttle ya' again," Bianca retorts instantly and Zoe quirks a brow, a gleam of something in her eyes which might be respect but probably isn't because this is Zoe.

"Huh. Wow. You've actually developed some brains."

"Huh. Wow. You've actually lost your marbles," Bianca returns with a dark look and Zoe sighs, rolling her eyes yet again as she pushes off from the wall behind her and steps up to Bianca, way too close in her space for her liking. Way to invasive and she's stood so close that Bianca can smell her. Oddly enough, she smells of cinnamon and coffee and not even a hint of l'eau de death. She isn't sure what's more disturbing, that Zoe doesn't smell like a morgue or the idea of Zoe _actually _smelling like a morgue.

The Emo pulls a business card from the top pocket of her chequered shirt then twirls it around her fingers smoothly like she's done it a million times before she tucks it neatly into the front right pocket of Bianca's Nike sweatpants.

"Probably," Zoe says and it takes Bianca a moment to figure out what her words were a response to because she's still smelling cinnamon and coffee and her leg's tingling where the card grazed her skin through the cotton. But then she blinks out of it and looks down at the Emo, feeling a certain smugness that she's noticeably taller than her.

She folds her arms across her chest.

Zoe looks up at her then smirks and it's dark and sly. Bianca has never and will never trust that look, it only leads to bad things.

"Call me when you're poor and desperate and maybe we can figure something out," She says mockingly and Bianca's teeth are pressed together so tightly that her jaw aches as Zoe takes a sweeping step back from her.

She fights the urge to squirm when Zoe looks her up and down, eyeing her critically before turns on her heel and walks off without so much as a backwards glance.

"... Bitch..." Bianca spits venomously before letting her arms unfold and she stalks back into her apartment to go and pummel her punch-bag and imagine it's Zoe's _smug nasty Emo face._

She spots the stack of bills piling up on the dresser and suddenly, Zoe's business card is burning a hole in her pocket and Bianca wants it gone.

She screws it up and throws it out her bedroom window before she can even begin to consider it.

She isn't going to stoop that low.

She won't let herself.

Because if she does then Zoe wins and she's never going to willingly let Zoe win_ anything._

_Ever._

* * *

_A/N: If/when I update this, it'll probably be in about a year from now because I don't write lengthy stories too well and this story is, as planned in my head, quite lengthy. Zoe and Bianca have a long way to go but maybe I'll pick this up better when I'm a more confident writer.  
Anywho, let me know what you think._


	2. Chapter 2

_A/N: Well, lookie here! An update and it didn't even take a year! But anyways, this chapter is mostly about Bianca and developing her character and some other important parts of this story rather than the shipping side of this. But anyway let the story continue..._

* * *

Bianca never wanted to live a criminal's life.

Taylor had always been different from her. She'd always been far more eager to go out and steal cars, break into houses... Anything really. Bianca had joined her because it was fun, not because she wanted to be any good at it.

But not Taylor. She wanted to be quick at hot-wiring cars and she'd wanted to be able to pick a lock in under ten seconds. She loved the adrenaline and she wanted that life.

And when she left St Trinian's, she got it because Andrea had gone with her. For whatever fucking reason the pair had become inseparable by the end of year. Practically joined at the hip. Fighting as much as ever, of course, but no longer avoiding each other.

It was kind of weird really and more than a little confusing but Bianca wasn't gonna complain because as long as Andrea was descent to Taylor then she'd got no qualms with it and they both seemed happy enough.

The point was that whilst Taylor and Andrea went on to throw themselves into the criminal world (under a variety of names and never doing the same thing twice in a row because thankfully_ one of them_ had some sense of caution though, strange as it may seem, it was Taylor) Bianca had decided to completely fuck all expectations people had of her to follow in Taylor's footsteps and instead decided to go on the straight and narrow.

Her friend's were more than a little shocked by it and Bianca never did tell any of them how much it stung for them to be so surprised. Like they couldn't imagine her doing anything besides terrorising people though they didn't mean any harm by it, of course.

But then again, she was completely going off the rails what with wanting to be a baker and all.

But that didn't mean that _everything_ she did was _completely_ legal.

After all, Taylor was still her friend and Andrea was alright really so it's without (almost) any reluctance on her part that, on occasion, she offers up her fists if they're needed.

And that's why she's bashing some bloke's face through plasterboard and silently pitying the poor sod who's gonna have to fix that because whoever did it before did a _really_ bad job of it. Her dad would undoubtedly be grumbling at the sight of such shoddy masonry.

She releases the man's shirt collar and leave him slumped against the wall, groaning and barely conscious, then dusts the specks of debris off her hoodie.

"Oi! You done yet?" She calls impatiently, scowling down the hallway towards a door that Andrea and Taylor had vanished through a short while ago.

Wait a second. Both of them... _Together._

Bianca frowns as her gaze turns suspicious.

They'd better not be-

"I swear down if you're doin' anything besides grabbing gear in there, I'm gonna be pissed!" She yells. It certainly wouldn't be the first time. A second later though Taylor's head appears from the doorway, looking affronted.

"We've got some restraint, you bint. Give us a minute, alright?" She retorts before ducking back into the room and Bianca groans, rolling her eyes because no, they don't have any restraint, not at all. That's just pure bullshit.

She glances around herself then tugs her hood further forward over her face. She's feeling antsy. Not because of the man twitching beside her sneakers but more because it's been too easy so far. If it's easy then that usually means something bad's gonna go down later.

Taylor and Andrea know what they're doing, of course. They've done this plenty of times but it never goes _this_ smoothly. There's always some guard that wasn't meant to be there or somebody's drunken ex causing a racket outside the building. There was always_ something._

The pair jog up to Bianca a short while later and Taylor shoves a rucksack into her friend's arms, grinning as she does with a gleam in her eye that explains why she does this.

"We hit the jackpot," She says in a hushed whisper and Bianca can't help but grin back at her. Taylor's enthusiasm is infection.

"C'mon, let's get out of here," Andrea prompts, glancing down briefly to the man by her foot before she pokes him with the tip of her boot. She frowns, her disappointment evident when he groans. "You didn't hit him hard enough."

"Tell that to the wall. C'mon then, you two. I don't need any more strikes on my record."

And then they run out the apartment block, dive into Taylor's beaten and modified Vauxhall Corsa and drive away.

Andrea and Taylor are grinning at each other up front and Bianca spots Andrea take hold of Taylor's hand and grip it tightly until she has to release it so that her girlfriend can switch up a gear.

Bianca shakes her head, smiling slightly then turns her gaze away from them to the street-lights racing past them and with every moment that passes, her smile fades further and a frown settles deeper into her features.  
The nervous feeling doesn't fade...

* * *

It is, however, explained the next day because Bianca isn't woken by her alarm but by a pounding on her front door and as she jerks awake and her brain fumbles to get itself together, she quickly realises that that this is _very_ bad news. She steps out her bedroom and unfortunately, she's proven right.

"_It's the police! Open up!"_

She contemplates climbing out her bedroom window and climbing back in through Mrs Woods next door then making a break for it down the fire escape because that's always been her contingency plan but then she remembers something.

She's on the straight and narrow and if she runs then it'll only follow her and make being on the straight and narrow that much harder.

Besides, there's worse things than charges for assault and robbery.

She sighs as she steps up to the front door then reaches out a hand towards the doorknob and mutters a quick prayer to St Trinian to please get her out of it relative unscathed.

As soon as she opens the door, it only takes three minutes before she's been cuffed, read her rights and is being frogmarched down towards a waiting police car in her pyjamas which, for your information, aren't the cosiest of things to be wearing outside in mid-February.

As she's placed none too firmly in the back seat of the car, silent and co-operative, she quietly decides that she is going to fucking_ kill_ Taylor and Andrea at the first opportunity.

She is going to throttle the pair of them.

With her_ bare hands_.

* * *

There is a code that all St Trinian's girls have drilled into them from the start of their education. If you say nothing, you are not guilty and so if you say nothing, you'll get released eventually. By them giving up or by St Trinian's intervention is irrelevant but it almost always happens. Yeah. _Almost_ always.

And so Bianca, being very fond of her freedom and eager for the best chance possible, says absolutely nothing.

She sits in a cold room and stares at the ceiling and doesn't breathe a word as question after question is fired at her and the middle-aged man sat opposite her steadily begins to lose his patience. Bianca is far too busy admiring, and by admiring she actually means 'feeling pretty grossed out by', the unpleasant patch of damp plastered to one corner of the ceiling.

She supposes with all this interior design milarky she's been noticing recently she probably ought to have gone into that instead of baking but then she remembers that she'd probably just get pissed off with people for being so incompetent in their DIY and baking is kind of therapeutic for her. She's never really been a 'people person' and baking adheres well to that. No one talks to you when you're juggling piping hot trays of steaming loaves.

"Miss Ashworth, are you even listening?"

Bianca blinks at him, sniffs then goes back to staring at the ceiling.

Seriously though, that ceiling is _nasty._

She hears the Inspector sigh and almost smiles as she folds her arms across her chest.

She mains resolutely silent throughout the rest of her time in that room, allowing her thoughts to wander and she finds herself thinking about Taylor and Andrea, about her job, about some of her other friends, and oddly enough, about Zoe. Just briefly but just for that moment she wonders if she knows and the idea that she does makes her stomach clench.

She'll be so _smug_ if she knows.

* * *

Somehow, the charges against her are dropped. One count of assault and one count of breaking and entering are suddenly voided.

Bianca doesn't doubt that Andrea or Taylor used their call to contact Polly and get them bailed. The Geek has a distinct knack for such things; changing stories, altering files and information. She does that kind of thing over breakfast so it likely wasn't much of a chore for her.

The Inspector isn't happy but there's nothing he can do about it and so they're all released and Bianca is sure to smile at him cheerfully as she strolls out the room with a cocky swagger.

She punches Taylor in the head when she sees her and Andrea growls at her warningly but Bianca pays no mind to it.

She's feeling pretty good and no Emo, even Taylor's Emo is going to ruin it.

Except, as it turns out, it doesn't have to be an Emo that ruins it because then she sees the car parked beside the kurb ahead of her. Her eyes widen, her heart drops into her stomach and her palms start to sweat all in less than a second.

_"__Oh fuck..._"

"Who's that?" Taylor questions as she rubs her still sore head and Bianca squares her shoulders.

"... My boss..." Bianca sighs.

"Shit."

"Yeah."

"... I'm sorry, Bianca."

Bianca ignores her and merely walks away. She knows that if she stays stood next to Taylor much longer she'll end up saying something that she'll regret or she'll maybe actually put some effort into another punch. Taylor hadn't meant for them to get caught though and she didn't deserve that.

It'd been a stupid thing actually; A back-up set of the CCTV cameras had been on a separate circuit to the one that Andrea had cut. They'd thought they were clear when really they'd had cameras trained on them the entire time. How Polly managed to make them look innocent with that kind of evidence against them is a question in and of itself but chances are, if Bianca asked her, she wouldn't be able to understand a word of what was being said anyway.

What's important now though is that Bianca's boss, the Head Baker and an all around hardass, is sat in his car and his eyes are narrowed with stern disapproval and Bianca knows without a doubt that she is completely and utterly _fucked._

For the second time in twelve hours, she is again proven to be right and she's never been so bitter about it.

He fires her on the spot.

She'd expected it, of course. She'd always been on thin ice just by being a St Trinian's girl so it's no surprise.  
It doesn't make it any easier to stomach though.

* * *

She lies in the middle of her living room, spreadeagle across the floor with her eyes closed as her mind whirs with restless thoughts.

She can summarise the root of her problems in a single sentence; she has no money.

And she has no money because she no longer has a job because she put a guy's head through a wall and helped her friends clear out his apartment. She'd been given a cut of profits but that would only tide her over for three weeks at best. She hadn't done it for the money, hadn't expected any really and everything had been shifted on the same night it was stolen before Andrea had sent a chunk of their profits off to Polly who then had it bouncing around various accounts around the country and it would keep bouncing for anywhere up to two months.  
It had been Taylor's idea back when her and Andrea had started taking on bigger targets. She's less cautious when it's just her but she's taken to being the more responsible of the pair since they started working together.

But Taylor had given Bianca a third of what they could get hold of that wasn't travelling between bank accounts and she'd apologised more times than Bianca has ever heard her in the rest of the years knowing her combined.

Then again, Taylor knew how important that job was to her.

It wasn't particularly well paid but she'd enjoyed it. She liked the feel of working dough beneath her hands, she liked the sweltering heat of the ovens and the smell. Geez, _the smell_... It reminded her of home. Plus, the Head Baker, though a tough and clearly not all that forgiving guy, had been providing her with a good number of lessons and Bianca liked learning. She especially liked learning about things she enjoyed.

It had been good for her. It'd helped build her patience and the relative solitude of being left to get things done had been nice. She'd been trusted, at least to a degree.

And now all she had to show for it was work hardened hands and a head full of recipes.

She opens her eyes then sighs heavily.

"Game plan, Bianca... C'mon. What ya' gonna do now?" She murmurs to herself and her mind flickers to Zoe and for one awful moment that she instantly regrets, she considers asking Andrea for her number.

And then she smacks her head back against the floor and rolls onto her feet, shaking her head roughly to clear it of such traitorous thoughts.

"Like fuck is she gonna win that easy," She mutters as she dusts herself off angrily and she grabs a jacket, tugs on her sneakers then heads out the front door and jogs down the stairs, her brow set with determination. "Like fuck am I gonna let 'er."

She's going to find work.  
She will if it _kills her_...

* * *

_A/N: I like to end chapters with Bianca feeling irritated at Zoe, even if she isn't there. Anyways, do review if you like._


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